Sherman Tanks and Panthers

[MrLongleg]

I tried a scenario with the newest patch and was a bit puzzled, that 6 Sherman tanks were able to drive around unharmed for hours during day time and with a line of sight in about 1000 to 1500 meters distance form a company of 12 German Panthers. In the real war those Sherman's had a life expectancy of minutes due to the effective and precise gun of the Panther.

Am I missing something or is this wanted as designed??

[danlongman]

Sometimes I wonder just how much time those Panzertruppen actually spent inside their machines.
You know with everybody eating SauerKraut and pumperknickle and drinking stale beer they prolly spent a lot of time standing
around outside dreading the order to get in just to go shoot half a dozen Shermies. Maybe they wouldn't bother til there were more...

[MrLongleg]

That must be it !! [:D]

[dazkaz15]

Hi Haudrauf

I think you need to send in some screen shots for us to try and answer that.

Was there any fog, or rain at the time limiting visibility?
Any kind of hill obstruction in the way?
Did the Panthers have ammo? (armour piercing ammo, HE would not work on the Sherman's)
Was its aggression set to min?
Where there other targets that the Panthers may have been concentrating on?
Was it fatigued?
Where they being suppressed , by artillery or other incoming ant-tank fire?
Where they retreating, or retreat recovering?
What was the Intel level on the enemy Sherman's?
What was the formation, and facing of the two units?
What was the deployment of the two units? (moving, deployed, taking cover, dug in, entrenched)
What was the difference in elevation? (units on a hill get a bonus on ones lower down, Not sure if this applies to attack or defence, or both though)
Was ambush selected as an order option?
What kind of terrain where they both in? (different terrain affords different bonuses to defence from direct fire, and bombardment)
What did the threat indicator tool say about the Sherman's? Did the Panthers consider them a threat?



The units do seam to be a lot more resilient than they used to be for sure, but that applies to both sides.

[MrLongleg]

Hi Dazkaz,

I checked those factors. I think yo are right that units die a lot harder than during the war. An Infantry company in open terrain, not dug in and shelled by mortars, artillery and 30 Panthers should also have a very short life span, at least you'd expect high casualties very quickly, but they are all real die hards.

Sometimes units literally sit on top of each other and still both get away with moderate casualties. Also penetrating a forrest line seems to be way to easy. Units just slip in although hammered by machine guns from several angles and walk on behind your lines as if nothing ever happened to them.

The game is a lot of fun, but I'd say the combat model lacks realism in certain situations. I still try to figure out how to avoid the enemy just walk behind my lines and mess with my supply.

[Arjuna]

Yes screen shots and saves are essential.

[rfrizz]

Saved games are also good for you, are they not? Ex: I have a situation saved in which my arty won't fire because of "friendlies in the way" even though there are none of my units with a footprint close enough to be a problems.

Another is the frequent inability to click on the "cross" of a destroyed/surrendered/disbanded enemy unit to see which one it was.


Do you want to see these?

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: rfrizz

Saved games are also good for you, are they not? Ex: I have a situation saved in which my arty won't fire because of "friendlies in the way" even though there are none of my units with a footprint close enough to be a problems.

Another is the frequent inability to click on the "cross" of a destroyed/surrendered/disbanded enemy unit to see which one it was.


Do you want to see these?

If I remember right, there is a 100m zone around the bombardment area to allow for stay rounds. If you want to fire Danger close, you can uncheck the avoid friendlies box in the fire orders menu.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: rfrizz

Saved games are also good for you, are they not? Ex: I have a situation saved in which my arty won't fire because of "friendlies in the way" even though there are none of my units with a footprint close enough to be a problems.

Another is the frequent inability to click on the "cross" of a destroyed/surrendered/disbanded enemy unit to see which one it was.


Do you want to see these?

First thing I'd do with this message is check to see if the fire is direct or indirect fire.

If there's a line of sight between the firing unit and the target, it can be direct fire, particularly if the firing unit does not have weapons capable of conducting indirect fire, or the range to target is below the minimum allowed for indirect fire.

[rfrizz]

For clarification, the closet unit's footprint edge was more than 600m from the edge of bombardment. I don't know why I didn't think to uncheck the Avoid Friendlies box. Durrr.

[RockinHarry]

Well, if considering the Shermans all have an overall frontal armor of 100mm +, there´s some issues, the more when paired with elite/high morale units, like in Return to St. Vith maybe. I repeatedly cursed lacking performance of german armor in there and german player is far from repeating historical successes vs. US medium armor, particularly with small units. At least it is so in St Vith IMO.

The single, averaged armor values (as opposed to seperated hull/turret) also give some problems, if considering deployed units receive hull down position bonus, making Shermans a small target with still 100mm + "turret" armor, although actually there is no seperated calculation for "turrets".

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: rfrizz

For clarification, the closet unit's footprint edge was more than 600m from the edge of bombardment. I don't know why I didn't think to uncheck the Avoid Friendlies box. Durrr.

Sorry if you think this insults your intelligence, but sometimes its easy to miss details that others take for granted.

You are aware that the footprint for the unit often extends way beyond the actual unit icon you see on screen.
You can see this when you click on the unit, and you will see an open ended box that extends around it. It is shaped depending on the formation, and can often extend way beyond the unit counter Icon, especially with large units in road column formation.
Your men are inside this area in formation, all be it in an abstracted kind of way, as the formation footprints in the current Version of Command ops wont follow roads and tracks exactly, but stays in a kind of strait line.
Hopefully this will be addressed one day in a major game engine update.

[rfrizz]

ORIGINAL: dazkaz15

ORIGINAL: rfrizz

For clarification, the closet unit's footprint edge was more than 600m from the edge of bombardment. I don't know why I didn't think to uncheck the Avoid Friendlies box. Durrr.

Sorry if you think this insults your intelligence, but sometimes its easy to miss details that others take for granted.

You are aware that the footprint for the unit often extends way beyond the actual unit icon you see on screen.
You can see this when you click on the unit, and you will see an open ended box that extends around it. It is shaped depending on the formation, and can often extend way beyond the unit counter Icon, especially with large units in road column formation.
Your men are inside this area in formation, all be it in an abstracted kind of way, as the formation footprints in the current Version of Command ops wont follow roads and tracks exactly, but stays in a kind of strait line.
Hopefully this will be addressed one day in a major game engine update.

No prob -- I didn't feel insulted it all.

It was really strange clicking on all nearby units and seeing the actual footprints nowhere near the bombardment box. Someone asked about this; is was bombard and not direct fire.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: RockinHarry

Well, if considering the Shermans all have an overall frontal armor of 100mm +, there´s some issues, the more when paired with elite/high morale units, like in Return to St. Vith maybe. I repeatedly cursed lacking performance of german armor in there and german player is far from repeating historical successes vs. US medium armor, particularly with small units. At least it is so in St Vith IMO.

The single, averaged armor values (as opposed to seperated hull/turret) also give some problems, if considering deployed units receive hull down position bonus, making Shermans a small target with still 100mm + "turret" armor, although actually there is no seperated calculation for "turrets".

Hi Rockinharry!

I agree with you regarding the averaged value, and with you assessing that it's a problem not to factor in the different thickness of turret and frontal armor, if the CO engine really generalizes like that.

I don't know whether you gathered that info (100mm) from the unit/tank detail screen (since I don't own BFTB) or if it reflects your state of knowledge/information, though.

So let me copy and paste a contribution I posted in the Close Combat forum in 2008:

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

ORIGINAL: User statement

I wouldn't say the Sherman is overpowered. Remember you are generally dealing with 76mm armed Shermans, not the earlier 75mm version. The 76mm, with it's weakest round, (APCBC) will penetrate 88mm of armor at 1 kilometer. The Panther doesn't have that level of armor anywhere other than the turret face and gun mantlet. The Sherman with 76mm M1 should be able to penetrate the hull easily from the front at the engagment ranges typical in this game.

Nope.
The Panther's regular AP round could penetrate 111 mm of armor at 1 km, where the special round (with tungsten core) could penetrate 150 mm of armor at the same distance, the production of these special rounds had to be halted in July 1943, due to the lack of sufficient amounts of tungsten, though. The Panther's 75mm gun had more penetration power than the Tiger's 88mm gun.

Regarding the Panther's protection, I don't know if you know the numbers regarding its armor, and you seem to forget to consider the slope modifiers:

The Panther Ausf. G's (March 1944) gun mantlet consisted of 120 mm armor (curved), the turret face had around 100-110mm of armor. The upper front's armor (driver/radio operator compartment) featured 80mm of armor (35°). The lower front (35° as well) had only 60mm armor, but a hit at this part of the tank was unlikely to happen, as it was part of the tub floor.

So, the only parts where a Sherman commander could hope to penetrate the Panther were those plates which were almost vertical (turret face, 80°), but the Sherman's shells then still had to go through 100-110 mm of armor.

The glacis, the driver compartment part, had a slope of 35° !

That said, in a frontal engagement, a Sherman with a 76mm gun (using regular AP rounds) could only hope to penetrate the Panther's armor if engaging at really close range (below 200 yards), aiming at the less curved/sloped parts of the mantlet/turret or at the nose (the small lower part with 60mm armor), although shells actually used to bounce off even the 60mm parts, due to the slope. The slope modifiers reduced the effectiveness of the ACP or ACPBC rounds tremendously.

ORIGINAL: U.S. Army Test No.2
Firing Tests conducted 12-30 July 1944 by 1st U.S. Army in Normandy.

7) 3-inch Gun, M5, mounted on Motor Carriage, M10
a) APC M62, w/BDF M66A1 will not penetrate front glacis slope plate at 200 yards. Will penetrate gun mantlet at 200 yards and penetrate sides and rear of the 'Panther' Tank up to 1500 yards.

b) AP M79 will not penetrate the front slope plate or the mantlet at 200 yards. It holds no advantage over APC M62 ammunition w/BDF M66A1.

http://www.wargaming.info/armour06.htm#2

The tested 3 inch gun (76mm M5) was mounted on a M10 carriage, so, when looking at this US Army test, you have to consider the fact that the M5 guns basically fired the same shell as the 76mm Shermans, but the M5's rounds had different chambers, providing a somewhat higher velocity.

The British 17-pounder and the US 90mm rounds had 100% more chamber capacity than the M1 shell, thus way higher velocities. Last but not least, the M5 was a pure AT gun, not designed to be employed in Shermans.

The 76 mm M1 employed in the Shermans really had a waaaaay lower performance regarding penetration.

According to the US field test, the M10's M62 shell did not penetrate the Panther's sloped frontal armor (80mm - 35°) at 200 yards (182.88 meters).

The US thought they had a great upgrade for the Sherman (75), but they were really disappointed regarding the 76mm's actual performance in the field, when facing Panther tanks. The british employed a different gun in their Sherman "Firefly" variant (the 17 pounder AT gun i mentioned before, which was the most effective Allied AT gun during the war), which had an actual chance against a Panther. Their loss/kill ratio was better. The US passed when the Brits offered to share these guns.

According to what I've read so far, the US Sherman's usage ratio of AP and HE ammo was 1:4 even until the Korean war, they often avoided to engage heavier enemy battle tanks (like the Panther) as they used to be destroyed before they could score a substantial hit, and they passed the job to the tank destroyer units or Allied heavy battle tanks, while they were focusing on engaging Panzer IV and providing Infantry support.

When a Panther was hit, the Sherman's M1 rounds mostly just bounced off. With Panther Version A, there were rare instances, due to the Panther's gun mantlet design, where rounds bounced off the mantlet deflecting the projectile almost vertically right down into the driver compartment, killing either driver or radio operator. These Panthers were usually still operable as they could still use their guns - engine or ammunition did not blow off, and they could be repaired. Version G's gun mantlet design fixed this.

The 76mm gun's performance was actually rather comparable to the gun of the Panzer IV and the late long-barreled version of the StuG III.

The effectiveness of the new HVAP rounds (July 1944) had been discussed somewhere in this forum i think, it had a somewhat better chance of penetrating the Panther's armor (I found infos stating HVAP T-4 could penetrate up to 120 mm of armor, I tend to think that these tests had been conducted using vertical steel plates - 90°, though), but the vital fact here is that this type of ammo was not available in sufficient numbers, the actual slope modifiers of the Panther reduced its effectiveness anyways, so even with HVAP the glacis could not be cracked at close range. The glacis of a Panther was still largely immune to 76mm HVAP, due to the slope.

Also, the distribution of the low numbers of HVAP was prioritized to US tank destroyer units.

With HVAP rounds, the Sherman 76mm had an actual chance to penetrate a Panther when firing at the less curved parts of the mantlet/turret at close range, as these parts had a slope of 80°, the question is whether the projectile then really got all through the 100-120 mm armor.

The Sherman was badly outclassed by the Panther tank, especially if you consider the Panther's effectiveness at long range (it could penetrate 111 mm at 1000 meters with regular AP rounds), with a clear LOS - a Sherman could rarely get close. SHAEF estimated a loss ratio of 8:1 and even 10:1 (means loosing 8-10 Shermans before 1 Panther could be cracked). Mass production and storming with sheer numbers was the Allied strategy here, as sufficient numbers of heavy tanks were not available (20 Pershings in the European theater?). The few Pershings had been distributed to several units, where each unit received 1 Pershing tank.

The real downside of the Panther was its side and rear armor, both were relatively weak, the turret's side consisted of 45 mm (65°) of armor only, the hull (upper part) 50 mm (60°), the hull (lower part) 40 mm (90°) and the rear had 40 mm armor (60°).

.... if i am correct, an armor plate of 60mm sloped back at 60 degrees from the vertical (or , if you will, 30 degrees from the horizontal) would be the equivalent in protection to about 120mm. So the 80 mm sloped glacis of the Panther proved to be a nut too hard to crack for the Shermans.

I outlined the German advantage regarding tank and heavy gun optics in this forum already, like a year or 2 ago, an advantage dealing with view range - which adds to the general advantage the Panther had when it came to thickness of armor, its gun's precision and its design of the front glacis and turret face/mantlet.
On a sidenote, due to the advanced optics, even PzIV tanks could engage Shermans at ranges of ~1000 to 1200 meters and score a hit with the 1st or second round, which was well above the range where a Sherman crew could reliably identify/detect the enemy and where it took a Sherman 4 rounds to just score a hit (most likely no penetration in a frontal attack, as outlined in my little article above) at 800 meters, due to the inaccuracy of the gun and due to the amount of blur in their optics, according to veteran reports collected by Zaloga and others.

In turn, the M4 Sherman's glacis consisted of 76mm sloped armor, but which the Panther's gun could hit and penetrate easily, even at ranges of 1000 meters. The very first Easy-8 (M4A3E8 with the 76mm gun, counter-weight and muzzle-brake), the variant that was deployed as a test run, got to see combat in Europe in December 1944, but was only available in relatively low numbers, afaik. The Easy-2, while having better armor protection than a Tiger I, was even more seen as a "test run" of that version, with even fewer vehicles deployed to the European theatre, was generally equipped with the 75mm gun, with few exceptions, and meant as support tank to crack enemy fortifications.

After the firing tests in Normandy, it was pretty obvious to US Army executive officers, that Shermans, even if equipped with the 76mm gun, would be able to fight Pz.IV tanks and StugIII assault guns, but that they would be essentially ineffective (unless they would be sent as flanking force, attacking in numbers) during frontal attacks against Panther tanks. As a result, in the main, Shermans were withdrawn and deployed in an infantry support role, while Tank destroyers, AT guns or heavy tanks (if available) were supposed to combat Panthers, Tiger IIs and the like.

According to Zaloga, even in 1945, still only half of the M4 Shermans and variants had the 76mm gun, while the rest were still either equipped with the 75mm gun or with the 105mm howitzer, another indicator for shifting the Shermans from a tank combat role to an infantry support role.

It would be desirable if the CO engine would factor in these historical and technical facts.

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy


Hi Rockinharry!

I agree with you regarding the averaged value, and with you assessing that it's a problem not to factor in the different thickness of turret and frontal armor, if the CO engine really generalizes like that.

I don't know whether you gathered that info (100mm) from the unit/tank detail screen (since I don't own BFTB) or if it reflects your state of knowledge/information, though.

M4 Sherman armor values is from ingame data tables and armor is averaged to be at 30° slope (as is all AT gun Pen stuff). There´s multiple factors involved to resolve Armor vs. Armor performance, so I highly recommend to try the BFTB demo as is also includes the mentioned Return to St. Vith scenario.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

After the firing tests in Normandy, it was pretty obvious to US Army executive officers, that Shermans, even if equipped with the 76mm gun, would be able to fight Pz.IV tanks and StugIII assault guns, but that they would be essentially ineffective (unless they would be sent as flanking force, attacking in numbers) during frontal attacks against Panther tanks. As a result, in the main, Shermans were withdrawn and deployed in an infantry support role, while Tank destroyers, AT guns or heavy tanks (if available) were supposed to combat Panthers, Tiger IIs and the like.

Weren't Shermans always intended for infantry support and breakthrough exploitation, not tank fighting?

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

. . .

Weren't Shermans always intended for infantry support and breakthrough exploitation, not tank fighting?

Based on the doctrine at the time, they entered production with a design thought capable of defeating the best Axis had in the field (Pz IV) with a dual role of supporting the US infantry support and doctrine.

However, US design and development didn't keep pace with the Germans when it came to tank technology.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... erman-tank

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

. . .

Weren't Shermans always intended for infantry support and breakthrough exploitation, not tank fighting?

Based on the doctrine at the time, they entered production with a design thought capable of defeating the best Axis had in the field (Pz IV) with a dual role of supporting the US infantry support and doctrine.

However, US design and development didn't keep pace with the Germans when it came to tank technology.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... erman-tank

Taking in account that anything bigger than a SA-18 gun could kill any German tank at that time, it doesn't mean much. Also, the doctrine is the main reason why Sherman didn't keep pace with German tanks/wasn't replaced.
The main purpose of Sherman tanks was to swamp the enemy rears with medium tanks.

Which is similar to how stuff worked in 1940 for Germans. They had to use anti-air guns and 105mm guns against French Char B1 tanks, but had a lot of light and medium tanks to swamp places that didn't have French heavy/medium tanks.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

. . .

Weren't Shermans always intended for infantry support and breakthrough exploitation, not tank fighting?

Based on the doctrine at the time, they entered production with a design thought capable of defeating the best Axis had in the field (Pz IV) with a dual role of supporting the US infantry support and doctrine.

However, US design and development didn't keep pace with the Germans when it came to tank technology.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... erman-tank

Taking in account that anything bigger than a SA-18 gun could kill any German tank at that time, it doesn't mean much. Also, the doctrine is the main reason why Sherman didn't keep pace with German tanks/wasn't replaced.
The main purpose of Sherman tanks was to swamp the enemy rears with medium tanks.

Which is similar to how stuff worked in 1940 for Germans. They had to use anti-air guns and 105mm guns against French Char B1 tanks, but had a lot of light and medium tanks to swamp places that didn't have French heavy/medium tanks.

Well, then to put it into different terms, the Sherman had difficulty defeating a Panther because the Panther did not exist at the time the design criteria for the Sherman was written by the combat developers who were crafting a largely infantry support doctrine for US forces that included defeating the best tanks the enemy possessed at the time, the Pz IV.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah




Based on the doctrine at the time, they entered production with a design thought capable of defeating the best Axis had in the field (Pz IV) with a dual role of supporting the US infantry support and doctrine.

However, US design and development didn't keep pace with the Germans when it came to tank technology.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... erman-tank

Taking in account that anything bigger than a SA-18 gun could kill any German tank at that time, it doesn't mean much. Also, the doctrine is the main reason why Sherman didn't keep pace with German tanks/wasn't replaced.
The main purpose of Sherman tanks was to swamp the enemy rears with medium tanks.

Which is similar to how stuff worked in 1940 for Germans. They had to use anti-air guns and 105mm guns against French Char B1 tanks, but had a lot of light and medium tanks to swamp places that didn't have French heavy/medium tanks.

Well, then to put it into different terms, the Sherman had difficulty defeating a Panther because the Panther did not exist at the time the design criteria for the Sherman was written by the combat developers who were crafting a largely infantry support doctrine for US forces that included defeating the best tanks the enemy possessed at the time, the Pz IV.

Germans have changed their policy only after it turned out that they are facing masses of T-34s and KVs in Russia. After France they were still confident enough in the successful "tank destroyer policy" (letting 88s and 105s handle the heavy armour) to attack Russia without tanks capable of fighting heavy tanks.

Americans in Normandy faced a situation where only 30% of enemy tanks were Panthers or Tigers and generally they would be encountered in small numbers, which was more similar to the situation that Germans have faced in France than the situation that Germans have faced in Russia.